Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) is calling on Australian charities and aid agencies to focus more on the sexual and reproductive health needs of women and girls around the world as refugee numbers tragically increase.

SPA national president, Sandra Kanck, says there are too many aid agencies failing to address this fundamental need.

‘Some charities respond to the dictates of conservatism and at best will simply offer words of advice to women and adolescent girls which are not much better than useless in emergency situations’.

‘Prevention is better than cure and many unwanted pregnancies can be avoided by offering females the modern contraception and education they desperately want.’

Ms Kanck says there are still about 222 million women, mostly in developing nations, who cannot get the contraception and family planning they want, causing the world population to grow at about 80 million a year. And with more than 50 million people now refugees, asylum seekers or internally displaced, the need has never been greater to protect women from unwanted pregnancies.

Ms Kanck says the Australian government could also do much better.

‘Under former Foreign Affairs Minister, Bob Carr, Australia had doubled this part of the budget from $25m to $50m a year. We want to hear from current Foreign Minister Julie Bishop about where family planning and contraception fit into Australia’s severely reduced foreign-aid budget.

‘How will Ms Bishop celebrate World Population Day and its 2015 theme of “vulnerable populations in emergencies”?’

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Media contact: Sandra Kanck, Ph. 0417882143

About Sustainable Population Australia: SPA is an independent not-for-profit organisation formed in 1988 to promote an understanding of the effects of human population numbers on the biosphere and society.